Fuji Finepix 3800 - great outdoors, not so otherwise.
Written: Jul 12 '04 (Updated Jul 13 '04)
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Pros: Good colors outdoors, strong zoom, ergonomic controls, decent bundled software.
Cons: Weak flash, slow shutter in automode indoors, troublesome autofocus.
The Bottom Line: Price is good, and image quality great for "still life" outdoors. Anything else, and you quickly run into this camera's limitations...
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| asafono's Full Review: FUJIFILM FinePix 3800 Digital Camera |
Before delving into the review, I must make the following confession: I am a complete amateur in digital photography, and photography in general. Being also quite lazy, I never figured out this camera's manual mode (one justification being that the illustrious Howard_Creech described this as limited.) But, since the majority of digital camera users probably fall in the same category (lazy amateurs), I believe I can contribute this review.
The Finepix is a 3 (actually, 3.2) Megapixel digital camera made by Fuji, a company with a long history in photographic equipment, among other things. This is not a compact camera; it is considerably larger than sub-cigarette-pack digital camers popular these days. I chose the 3800 because I had good experiences with an old point-and-shoot Fuji, and also because it promised to trade off a compact size for superior optics.
The main strenghts of this camera are clear, natural-color outdoors images, and ease of operation. The main drawbacks are a weak flash (and no external flash interface), and a slow shutter speed in the automatic mode, making it a poor choice for indoor photography.
When you first turn the 3800 on, you need to enter the current date and image resolution. The default resolution is 1 Megapixel, about 1000x1000 pixels, which is probably not what you want considering that this camera can do much better. The two highest resolutions are 3.2 Megapixels (2048 by 1536) uncompressed and JPEG-compressed. JPEG is a lossy format, but usually compresses 3 megabyte images to between 400 and 600 kilobytes, 7:1 or 5:1 ratio. I have yet to see any artifacts introduced by the JPEG compression, so I will recommend the 3 Megapixel compressed image mode, as it allows to fit the most images at the highest resolution.
Speaking of image storage. The Finepix comes with a 16 Megabyte xD card; this will store about 25 JPEG-compressed 3 Megapixel images. Almost anybody would want to purchase an additional (really, a replacement) xD card of a higher capacity. At the time I purchased the camera (July 2003), the 128 Megabyte xD card provided the best price/storage amount ratio. The only time I was ever able to fill up the 128 MB card was on a 2-week trip where I made about 220 pictures.
The Finepix 3800 has a 6x optical zoom, higher than most cameras in this mid-priced class. It is great to be able to zoom in on a part of a scene (say, to cut off stray extremities) knowing this is done through optical and not digital zoom, that is, without compromising image quality.
The 3800 is, again, one of the few cameras in its class that has both an electronic and an optical viewfinder. That is, one can squint in the optical viewfinder, or look at an approximately 1.5x2 LCD screen when composing a picture.
This camera is advertised as being completely auto-focusing (in the automatic mode); you press lightly on the "button" to focus, and then press firmly to take the picture. If the camera is unable to auto-focus, a crossed-out AF icon appears in the viewfinder. Unfortunately, this happens quite often indoors. The manual recommends pointing the camera to a "scene" where it is more likely to find focus (such as a blank wall), and then point back to the desired scene. I have tried this approach, and the quality of the pictures varies greatly, from quite acceptable to very poor.
No problems with outdoor, natural lighting images using this camera. Colors are crisp and natural; I could not detect any trace of optical or color distortion. The situation is different indoors, though. First, the flash is weak, so objects or people farther than 3 meters/10 feet away will barely be discernable (this can perhaps be fixed by postprocessing the image.) Second, the shutter speed appears to be much slower indoors (naturally - less light; even with the flash?), and the slightest movement in the scene, or an unsteady head, are likely to ruin the picture. Good luck photographing active children indoors with this camera...(http://www.safonov.us/images/Ghost.JPG)
The three main interfaces of the 3800 (apart from the snapshot button) are the mode knob, the image zoom/preview controls, and the menu buttons. The mode knob rotates to turn the camera off, or to select the preview mode, the video mode, the picture mode, and the manual mode. The knob is rather flimsy, and on more than one occasion I have accidentally flipped it from picture to video mode (which is very poor.) The image zoom buttons (up- and down-pointing arrows) do the obvious thing during both scene selection and previewing of images already taken. The preview arrows move between stored pictures, one forward or backward. Finally, the 2 menu buttons (or, rather, the Menu/Ok and the Back buttons) work similarly to those in many cell phones, and should be fairly intuitive to most users. The primary use of the menu for me is to erase pictures after they have been transferred to a computer. The menu makes it fairly easy to erase individual pictures (frames in Fuji terminology), and also makes sure you do not accidentally erase all your pictures.
The 3800 comes with an USB cable and Exif software for transferring the images to the hard disk, and cataloguing them. Once the camera is connected to the computer (I have a Win2k PC) via the USB, and Exif is started, it automatically opens the images directory on the camera. After that, a click on the "Mass Transfer" button puts the images, by default, in the directory named YYYY_MMDD (e.g., 2004_0712) under My Pictures. The camera can now be ejected as an USB device, and turned off.
The primary strengths of the Exif software I took advantage of are its ability to batch-rotate selected images, and the speed with which it shows thumbnails of images in a directory (hint: much, much faster than the "Thumbnail View" of either 2000 or XP Explorer.) One feature notably missing is the ability to manipulate image files and directories by dragging and dropping them.
The Finepix 3800 runs on 4 AA batteries. It comes with alkaline AA batteries which are the cheapest variety. Unfortunately, I understand their discharge characteristics make them unsuitable for peaky power usage by most digital cameras. Mine lasted for about 20-25 pictures, and the flash stopped working even earlier. The Digital Photography For What It's Worth site (http://dpfwiw.com/batteries.htm) has a wealth of information and discussion on various types of batteries for digital cameras. The bottom line appears to be that rechargeable NiMH (Nickel-Metal-Hydride) batteries are the best and reasonably economical. The site lists some recommended smart chargers; I got a Maha MH-C204F charger bundle with 2 sets (get 2!) of 4 NiMH batteries for about $32 in 2003.
I bought the Finepix online from Cameras and Electronics and reviewed this merchant.
Resources:
Digital Camera Reviews at Steve's Digicams:
http://www.steves-digicams.com/hardware_reviews.html
rec.photo.digital FAQ:
http://rpdfaq.50megs.com/
Howard_Creech's How to Choose a Digital Camera
Batteries for AA-compatible Digital Cameras:
http://dpfwiw.com/batteries.htm
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 375
This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Easy Enough for Anyone to Use
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asafono
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Location: St. Paul, Minnesota
Reviews written: 39
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About Me:
I have no principles; all I've got is nerves - Akutagawa Ryunosuke.
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